Swisher County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Swisher County lies within the Texas High Plains / Panhandle and the High Plains — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Swisher County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Swisher County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Swisher County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Swisher County — the short answer
Swisher County, Texas: USDA zone 7a, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 570K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 570K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 7a is Swisher County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Swisher County's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Swisher County
Across a year, Swisher County accumulates about 4,050 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,774 fewer than the middle Texas county — ahead of 13 of Texas’s 254 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 2,267 hours below 45°F, 1,172 more than the Texas middle of 1,095. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Swisher County
Across Swisher County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Pullman, Lofton, and Mansker are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 7.3, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
83%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Swisher County
The USDA soil survey maps 89% of Swisher County as well drained — but another 11% drains differently: 7% moderately well drained, 4% poorly drained.
Pullman is the most extensive named soil at 74% of mapped acres, then Lofton (6%) and Mansker (4%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Swisher County
Each reading below is measured for Swisher County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Swisher County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Swisher County runs about pH 7.3, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredSwisher County runs about 213 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredSwisher County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Swisher County is in
Swisher County sits in the High Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Swisher County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Swisher County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 213-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile.
Is it too late to plant in Swisher County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Swisher County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Swisher County
USGS estimates 183,808 lb of Glyphosate on Swisher County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (73,647 lb) and Dicamba (72,645 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Swisher County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Swisher County — 75 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Swisher County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Swisher County
Closest first, across Swisher County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OLD SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TULIA FUELUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- KEN LOVE FUELUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- REAL ESTATE & INSURANCE OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- HAPPY ISD BUS BARNUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- ATTERBURY GRAINUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TYE & SONSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- PRAIRIE FEEDYARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CACTUS FEEDERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- RIVERSIDE TERRACORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- EDMONSON WHEAT GROWERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SDHPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Swisher County's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Swisher County.
Sources Checked
across Swisher County
Severity Distribution
across Swisher County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Swisher County, two things run higher than the national average across Swisher County — CAFO (6 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (56 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Swisher County
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Swisher County average
Your land is one point inside Swisher County
Everything above resolves to Swisher County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 570K acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at county scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better county average.
Your Lot vs the Swisher County Average
Swisher County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Swisher County
- ●One soil character for all of Swisher County
- ●Frost dates read at Swisher County's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Swisher County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Swisher County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Swisher County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Swisher County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Swisher County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Swisher County average
How we know this about Swisher County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Swisher County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Swisher County
When does frost risk typically end in Swisher County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Swisher County typically lands around Apr 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 27.
How long is the growing season in Swisher County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Swisher County sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 22, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Swisher County?
The federal record around Swisher County is a meaningful one — 75 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (56), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Swisher County's scale — its 7a band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Swisher County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Texas's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Swisher County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Swisher County's own scale — its own ~213-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 75 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Swisher County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Swisher County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Swisher CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 75 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Swisher County's boundary and the 569,702 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Swisher County sitting wholly inside the High PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Swisher County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Swisher County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Texas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Texas
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Swisher County — the ~213 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Swisher County's 569,702 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 75 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Swisher Countyread your own land →